Bradshaw Crandell's Glamour-Face Niche

The time was -- and maybe still is -- that a fairly safe way to build a successful career in art involved being able to paint faces of beautiful women. For illustrators the marketing sweet-spot was magazine covers, be they movie fan magazines, women's magazines or even general-interest magazines.

There were several illustrators whose careers were devoted to that subject, perhaps most notably Harrison Fisher, whose works dominated the covers of Cosmopolitan Magazine for the first three decades of the 20th century.

The present post deals with Bradshaw Crandell (1896-1966), who followed Fisher's footsteps to some degree, including creating cover art for Cosmopolitan. Crandell's Wikipedia entry is here. But artists might find this post on Leif Peng's blog of more interest. The writer, Kent Steine, describes Crandell's pastel layering technique used for much of his work up until the 1940s when he transitioned to oil paints. Pastel was popular for rendering women's faces because it could create a smooth appearance more easily than oil paints and without the fuss and potential for the artificiality of airbrush.

Crandell could and did create full-length illustrations of women and even could paint a man. But his fame was centered on depictions of women, some of which are shown below.

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Photo of Crandell and actress Bette Davis and the resulting Cosmopolitan cover
In the photo foreground are what appear to be boxes of pastel sticks.

Blonde

Brunette

Ingrid Bergman cover art

Redhead

Art, perhaps for a Cosmo cover

Saturday Evening Post Cover - 13 April 1935

Saturday Evening Post Cover - 2 June 1934
This actually includes a man.

Full-length drawing - from around 1933
Again, just to show that Crandell could do more than women's faces.

Félix Mas: Stylized Women in Decorative Settings

What was there about Spain in, say, the 1950s? The water? The Rioja? Anyway, the country produced some really talented comics artists who were trained around that time. One example is Félix Mas (1935 - ) who was active in that field as well as illustration before moving on to painting in oils. His brief Wikipedia entry is here, and a link dealing with his comics work is here.

All of his painting images that I could find on the Internet featured slender, beautiful young women. Clothing and settings were usually stylized and decorative. After a little thought, I decided that Mas was inspired by Gustav Klimt, in that decorative patterns or other elements such as peacock feathers form part of the background or setting. The decorative elements are not as extreme as Klimt's. And as noted below, often the women are wearing kimonos, and those kimonos feature floral and other patterns.

I keep repeating the word decorative, because that's what Mas' paintings essentially are. Viewers who prefer to find a story, psychological tension, or other dramatic content might be disappointed by Mas.

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Panel from Vampirella #16, April, 1972. This shows Mas' style as a comics artist.

Now for some of his oil paintings...

These two paintings feature vaguely 1900-style hair and high collar.

Mas has women dressed in kimonos in many of his paintings. I don't recall having seen a strapless kimono, however.

Walter Gotschke, Automobile Impressionist

Seen above are an Auto Union and a Mercedes dueling in a pre-World War 2 race. The illustrator is Walter Gotschke (1912-2000) who reconstructed many such scenes after the war using a distinctive impressionist style of gouache painting. His art is well known to automobile buffs.

A short biography on a web site dedicated to Gotschke is here. The German Wikipedia entry that provides family information as well as Gotschke's World War 2 service is here. Charley Parker deals with his art here.

It seems that Gotschke was self-taught, but had little trouble understanding how to portray machines and settings accurately with strong doses of atmosphere and emotion. When necessary, he could change his style to tight rendering. Sadly, he started losing eyesight around 1985 and was blind by 1990, some ten years before his death.

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Rudi Caracciola driving a Mercedes SSK at the Semmering Bergrennen (hill climb), 1928.

Rudi Caracciola winning the 1931 Mille Miglia.

2 Litre Mercedes at 1924 Targa Florio race.

W154 Mercedes at 1938 Italian Grand Prix, Leghorn.

Bernd Rosemeyer in Auto Union speed record car, 28 January 1938.

Gotschke illustration doodles, 1968.

Volkswagen Works, Wolfsburg, 1946. Wolfsburg was in the British occupation zone, and production was re-started to provide a few vehicles for the occupation forces. Little did the Brits know what would come to pass.

Berlin street scene, 1930.

Brochure cover for Mercedes Type 170S - 1949.

Illustration for Ford Taunus P3 - c. 1961. This, and the three illustrations above, are crisply done, unlike his racing art.

Stan Galli; Unobstrusive Illustrator

The image above shows the dirigible Graf Zeppelin over San Francisco Bay while on its 1929 around-the-world flight. Appropriately, the illustrator was Stan Galli (1912-2009), who was born in San Francisco and spent most of his long career there rather than in New York or Chicago where most American illustrators plied their trade in his day.

Some biographical information on Galli can be found here. Reminiscences by his son are here, and extracts from an interview of Galli are here.

Galli was a highly competent, versatile illustrator. On the other hand, his work was not distinctive; shuffling through a stack of illustrations, one doesn't easily cry out "There's a Galli! That's one too!").

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Illustration for True magazine story "The Poisoner who Couldn't Spell" - March, 1955.

Galli painted the cars as well as the settings (often specialist illustrators for each were hired).

He did a series of illustrations for Weyerhaeuser advertisements that ran in the Saturday Evening Post and other slick magazines for years.

Travel posters for United Airlines - from around 1960.

Galli also did fine-art painting.

Gonzalo Mayo's Intricate Comics Pages

I don't follow the comic book / graphic novel field very closely. But I do have a rough idea regarding how long it can take to draw and ink a page. Simply put, the more detail in the artwork, the longer it takes to complete. Then there's the matter of a project's budget. If plenty of money were available, highly detailed drawing is possible. But a small budget implies that artwork will be pretty simplified -- unless the artist is willing to work for starvation wages (in terms of piecework).

When I sometimes flip open a graphic novel and get beyond the elaborate, carefully done cover, what's inside can be sketchily done digital art. Disappointing, but understandable.

Which is why I marvel when I happen to encounter the detail and quality of drawing by practitioners such as the Peruvian, Gonzolo Mayo (his web site containing a sketchy biography is here). How did that happen? (Comics mavens, feel free to fill us in in Comments.)

Mayo is perhaps best known for his work dealing with a character called Vampirella. She has a body that, as the saying goes, won't quit. And her clothing barely covers what is expected to be covered. I consider her ridiculous, so I don't think I'll post any Vampirella images (you can make the effort to Google on her and feast your eyes, if you must). Below are page images of Mayo's work, at least one of which contains a Vampirella surrogate. Click on the images to enlarge.

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Okay, so I changed my mind. Here is an image of original art for Vampirella #79, page 10, from 1979. Miss V is depicted in a fairly restrained mode here.

Semi-splash page for Merlin.

Two pages from Creepy # 62, May 1974.

From El Cid in Eerie, c. 1975.

Maurice Greiffenhagen: Painter and Illustrator

Maurice Greiffenhagen (1862-1931) was a Royal Academician, an instructor at the Glasgow School of Art, and an illustrator. His Wikipedia entry is here, and a link containing some of his illustrations is here.

Greiffenhagen was highly competent as well as versatile. I tend to prefer his illustrations to his portraits (he did many), many of which tend to be rather dark with (as best I can tell from digital images) slightly fussy brushwork.

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Poster Art for London Midland & Scottish Railway

Carlisle, Gateway to Scotland - 1924

A Visit to Town

Piccadilly - 1926


Classical and Literary Scenes

Laertes and Ophelia - 1885

An Idyl - 1891

Cophetua - 1920-25

The Message - 1923


Portraits

Sir Henry Rider Haggard - 1897
Greiffenhagen was an illustrator of Haggard's books.

Lady with coral necklace - c. 1910

Sons of William Parkinson - 1915

Lady Emma J. Biles - 1917


Nude

Nude with a Wrap - 1924